Monday, January 18, 2010

Nazca (Peru)

After such a perfect excursion to the Colca Canyon it would have been nice to just take it easy and soak it all in once back in Arequipa, but unfortunately I had to keep going...so I went straight to the bus terminal for another night on a bus!
My next destination was Nazca, which I reached at the unpleasant time of 5, while still asleep. I tried to fight off the touts and just do my own thing, and ended up at some desolate office waiting room killing time before the agency opened for the day to book my flight over the famous Nazca lines...
well, I had never been entirely sure whether or not I should visit them and spend $30-40 or more on a 25 minute flight, and in the end I did...which I am still not sure was a good idea! haha
The lines are very mysterious and one could say it's been a mystery for so long that people should want to see them at all costs...I just felt like I was going to be ripped off no matter what, ajd I'm pretty sure I did in the end! The lines were interesting, but I didn't expect the plane to get so close from both sides and turn on each side to get closer...that didn't go down too well with what I had put in my stomach, so I ended up missing the last two figures! haha
Just like most people visiting the lines, I tried to get out of Nazca just as quickly as I has come in, as I was trying to combine it with sandboarding at Huacachina!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch.

Arequipa (Peru) & Colca Canyon

Crossing the border at nightfall wasn't the only required step to get to Arequipa...some of us had to get off the bus in Puno and get on a different one of course...which was quite uncomfortable, but it seemed like I had barely fallen asleep when the bus stopped and there we were, in Arequipa at 3.30! How convenient! To make matters worse, the terminal is over 3km away from the center, so people had no choice but taxi it...unless you wanted to spend the following 2 hours in the terminal till the local buses started running, that is...

I decided to head to Misti House and crash there till the morning...after 2 straight nights on buses, any mattress will feel heaven!

Arequipa is a beautiful, pleasant and modern city! I have to say that Sucre's white colonial architecture impressed me more, but at the same time I wish I had spent more time in Arequipa...people seemed more "modern and sophisticated" than anywhere else in Peru (except Lima), the whole city just had a good vibe all around!
I went to visit the Convento de Santa Catalina, named after Santa Caterina da Siena, which was wonderful on many different levels! Its colors, alleys and courtyards make it look like a city within the city center, and it was well worth the 30 soles! On a side note, I think it had the best bathrooms I've seen in all of Peru, airport included!

I decided, on a whim, to take the 2-day hiking tour of the Cañon del Colca, the world's deepest canyon (although this is disputed with another nearby canyon, Cotahuasi), more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the USA!
Not planning it beforehand was not such a great idea, as I was not prepared or rested enough to wake up at 3 the next morning and hike 7-8 hours!
Nevertheless, this last minute excursion ended up being one of the highlights of my whole trip!
Our minibus showed up at 3.30 to drive us out of town to the famous Cruz del Condor, a breath-taking spot where we first saw the depth of the canyon, although the main attraction was of course the condor! Considering what my luck had been at MachuPicchu I was definitely not expecting to see any condors, so I was taken aback when as soon as we showed up...there they were, doin their thing in the air, using the various winds to get around...it was beautiful!!! Pictures definitely do not do it any justice, so I also took pictures of the photographs for sale there! haha Unfortunately, the whole scene was ruined by a bunch of dumb tourists who thought it was a good idea to make strange sounds to the condors...ugh!
Later on, our guide told us a bit more about condors in general...very little is known because they're very reserved and do their best to avoid human contact...they're usually about 1m high and their wings can spread to about 3m...there are theories according to which they are "friends" with foxes, who eat other dead animals and then signal to the condors where these are...our guide even said that sometimes the condors get to the corpses when their flesh has already fermented, and that is how condors get drunk...he said he had seen one with his own eyes!!!
We started our hike at the top of the canyon and walked downhill for about 4 hours to the bottom of it, crossed the river and then walked some more to a little town where we stopped for lunch! After lunch we did some more hiking, got wet trying to cross a river, and then continued in the rain till the oasis in the middle of the canyon...it is a green, lush patch of land in the middle of arid, desert-like rocks...its best feature is the amazing number of beautiful pools...that was definitely the best part of the 2 days, together with the views and sighting condors! Once we did make it to the oasis after having crossed yet another bridge, I made a run straight for the pool...what a beauty! The setting already made it extremely special, plus one side was carved out of a natural rock that came up over the pool itself and could be used to dive off of (or at least I did! haha), and then the opposite side had terracotta vases pouring water into the pool!
The rooms were pretty basic houses made of mud, they didn't look like they had bricks...what they did have were plenty of little holes for all sorts of insects and spiders to thrive in...that's why I didn't dare point my flashlight at any wall before going to bed...I just didn't want to know!
The next morning our hike back up to the top of the canyon started at 5.30, and again we were lucky to have gorgeous weather so that we could admire the beauty around us!
After over 3 hours we made it back up, had a rinvigorating breakfast, then parted ways with our guide and got on another minibus to Chivay...where we visited the hot springs, different pools going from 34 C to about 42 C...in the latter I dove in as if it were a normal pool, except it felt like a boiling pot ready for pasta! It felt great though!
The excursion would have already been more than memorable if it had finished that way, but the big cherry on top was the unbelievable sunset we were lucky to witness on our bus ride back to Arequipa...words cannot describe it!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch.

Ica & Huacachina (Peru)

Ica was initially to be just the transportation hub for my visit to Huacachina, but I ended up spending a bit more time there than expected...it's also the main city for the region, which made it sadly famous in 2007 for a terrible earthquake, which actually hit Pisco (that I'd visit later on)...I guess I was expecting less than Nazca, so I was surprised by how much bigger and "busier" it was...I ended up eating at the local vegetarian restaurant (run by the local Seventh Day Adventists, like usual) twice in two days, both on my way in and on my way out!

My mototaxi ride into Huacachina left the center of Ica, went up some sandy hills and then ended up at the oasis, which seems to be in the middle of the desert, some 5km outside Ica.
It was of course very hot and sunny, a big change from most of my time in Peru and Bolivia, and during the daytime people just seem to relax by a pool or away from the sun!
Huacachina used to be the playground and escape oasis for the Peruvian elites, now its setting is still impressive, but the oasis itself is very dirty! (Locals still take advantage of its waters though...)
It's now a famous spot on the Gringo Trail to chill out and go 4-wheeling and sandboarding on its giant and vast surrounding sand dunes! I got there just in time to get on the last, and supposedly the best - as the sand is not so hot anymore, tour of the day in the afternoon...our buggy was carrying 9 people, plus the driver and his helper...the ride up and down the dunes was a lot of fun! It's a bit like a rollercoaster at times, combined with the dunes and the sand, which make it similar to ski slopes.
After some fun in the buggy and some pictures (damn sand everywhere!) it was time to brace the sandboards and get ready...for the first one everyone went down lying with their stomach on the board, which seems to be the easiest way to ger some adrenaline going! I was curious as to what it felt like to try to stand as if I were snowboarding, so I first tried that...well, it was very hard to get the board to keep gliding! Apparently, after a few turns the wax wears out, and it's not smooth anymore...so you you either go straight down the whole dune, or put up with getting stuck, your front foot sinking in the sand, and so on...of course we did see some guys from other groups who did it no problem and even made it look super easy while at it...oh well!
Out of our four descents, I tried standing twice and lying down twice, and I have to say the latter was much more fun and a lot less work, although I was honestly expecting a little more adrenaline and speed!

The rest of the night was spent trying to get as much sand off everything as possible...but everyone knows sand is very sneaky, so it's to this day a very daunting task!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

La Paz (Bolivia), part II

I was happy to get to spend another halfday in LaPaz before leaving Bolivia altogether, as I already knew my way around quite well, and it's always nice to know where you're headed, and there were a few things I still needed to check out in the center (including shopping ); I also needed to go get my celebrative T-shirt for having survived the Death Road on a MTB and the DVD-R with the pictures and videos from that adventure! I got the chance to go back to The Point, the hostel with by far the most comfortable beds on my trip, wash up, say HI to the people who work there, and grab my DVD and T-shirt!
I am not too sure why I liked LaPaz so much...maybe because the beds were so comfy, or because I really felt at home at the hostel, or because the city's dramatic physical setting nestled between mountains, or because it's one of the highest capitals in the world, or because it's big and crazy and hectic but at the same time manageable on foot...it's a probably a mix of all that!
I had missed out on a few things on my first visit, so my first run in the morning was for salteñas, filled pastry shells similar to empanadas but juicy inside...they're usually filled with either meat or chicken only (duh!), but my LP pointed me to a few that had veggie ones...they are only served in the morning, so I had to rush, because this was probably the only city in Bolivia with veggie ones (I had asked around, getting the same "We like meat around here" replies!)...they were kind of expensive and it was hard not to burn your tongue or spill "juice" everywhere, but I had 3-4 and was happy to have tried them!
Back to the central/chaotic part of the city, I finally made my way through alleys of the typical Andean articrafts, and hats, scarves, gloves, etc...I visited the Coca Museum, which was very interesting but definitely needed a bigger space, and then went through the witchcraft market, where I saw lots of llama embryos for sale...apparently if you build a house it's good to have one of those buried on the property!
Then I wandered around the black market which was total chaos, but not as active as usual because it was Saturday...right after my LP walking tour was over, it was time to go back to the bus terminal, which was very close-by! How convenient is that?!

My night bus back to Peru involved crossig the border at Desaguadero before it closed at 20...we got in line and quickly realized it would be a lengthy process! After patiently waiting for my turn for an entry stamp into Peru, I almost started laughing when the two people at the windows in front of me were almost arguing with the officers...one lady, diligently followed by her beautiful husky, started saying that she had lost all her papers but wanted to get through anyway, while the officer kept saying that she had to pay a fine of some sort...the other story was even more entertaining! This girl, whom I had not realized was so young since she was facing the other way, showed up to the window with her papers and the officer said that in order to cross she needed both of her parents' permission since she was a minor...she kept saying she was 18...the officer would look at her papers and say she was 17...he would ask her how old she was, and she would say 18...haha it was great!!! It went on for a good 5-6 minutes...he must have asked her at least 10 times, and she said "I'm 18" at least 10 times...although I was in a hurry, it was exhilarating! At some point she somehow decided to give up, picked up her ID and left!!! Ahhh finally my turn...

Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Sucre (Bolivia)

At about 2400m, it's weird to say it was one of the lowest places I have visited on this trip! Sucre felt noticeably warmer and seemed much more "sophisticated" than the rest of the country (Lima excluded); lots of people out and about, lots of places filled with people, even the night market where I went to eat was packed!
The city's best features though are its blinding white buildings and beautiful colonial architecture; the sun and scattered clouds helped my good mood and my inclination to take a lot of pictures!
The only thing that is inconvenient about Sucre is its bus terminal, a 25 minute uphill walk from the center. Other than that, I loved relaxing in the main square, strolling through the streets looking for food stalls, taking lots of pictures, and "stealing" the wi-fi signal from different bars while standing on the street! Also, the vegetarian restaurant inside a gym was quite tasty and super cheap!

Needless to say, it was hard to leave, especially since it was my last place in Bolivia: I was to spend the next day in La Paz just for the day, before boarding a Peru-bound bus in the late afternoon.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch.

Friday, January 08, 2010

Potosí (Bolivia)

Potosí is the kind of place that a lot of people go through, but not many seem to be raving about it...I was very happy to be getting there because it meant finally leaving Uyuni! After a few complications, our bus finally left, and I was happy enough to be on my way to somewhere other than Uyuni!
I didn't seem to care even when I got woken up by our bus arrival at 1 and I had to get my stuff and walk uphill for about 1km at an altitude of 4070m in the rain!
Things got even better when I found out that my reservation was actually for the one hostel everyone had recommended, which seemed to be full online!
The only problem once I got there was falling back asleep at 2 after all the effort to get there!
The next morning I was up bright and early at 7, and after a great shower I was ready for breakfast and a new beginning!
I signed up for a mine tour, which seems to be the most common thing to do in town, since its past wealth and fame are due to the Cerro Rico and its minerals lying within.
Our two guides were both ex-miners, although one seemed crazier and stranger tha the other one; he had spent 7 years working in a mine, and he kind of reminded me of a soldier coming hone from a war.
Our first stop on the tour was a run-down house where we put on our miner outfits: baggy pants and jacket, rubber boots, a helmet and a belt that held the charger that was connected to the typical miner flashlight on top of our helmet.
Our next stop was the miners' market, where we learned about what they eat and drink, and we bought them some coca leaves and sodas. Then we stopped at another shop where we learned a bit about dynamite, how to set it off, how to make it more powerful, and so on...we also bought some for the miners, because, as our guide kept repeating, ours wasn't just a touristic visit, it was a social one: we were to interact with the miners, learn about their lives, and bring them presents. Since they have to buy their own food and drinks, and even their own dynamite to keep explorin the mine, they were happy to receive a bunch of stuff for free from us!
Our next stops were a "refining plant" for the minerals and a lookout point over the city for some more pictures in our funny outfits...then we finally reached the mine!
While waiting outside taking pictures we witnessed three people from another group who had just walked in come out as they couldn't take it any longer...nice!
As we approached the entrance, there was a mix of excitement and tension in the air! We finally took off and started walking jn, and it wasn't so bad...not too small, and very straight, so that for the first 5-10 minutes you could see the light behind you, and you couldn't get lost!
We had about 50 m or so to get inside the mine, and we knew we were there when all of a sudden we saw plenty of galleries intersectig each other, and that's when we knew we'd better stick together and close to the guides! haha As we got deeper and deeper inside, it looked darker and darker, and felt warmer and warmer...we also realized it had gotten harder to breathe, and we were thanking the pipes of compressed air running throughout the whole place for giving us oxigen! After some more walking, which had gotten trickier especially for the few of us over 1.75m, we had to find refuge in an opening on the side of the path since a cart full of minerals weighing about a ton wss coming down the tracks, being pushed out of the mine by three young guys! They were faster even while pushing the full cart than we were empty-handedly!
Our first real stop was a cave on the side of the path, where we sat down and waited for some miners to join us for a chat and some food and drinks. I talked to a 40 year old man who had been working in there for over 23 years, practically his whole life with the exception of 5 years he spent in Argentina working in construction...once the economic collapse came around, he came back to Potosí, his hometown, where the onlu job opportunities were in mining. He said that a normal day is 8 hour long, but that there have been times where he spent 24, or even 48 hiurs straight, inside the mine! It's kinda like working overtime, the only difference being that they get paid according to the weight of the minerals that they find, so more workinh hours were needed at times to find more minerals! They are organized in a co-op, except that it doesn't really do anything for them...each of them has to pay for their own food and drinks, their own equipment, ther own dynamite, and even, surprise surprise, for their own share of compressed air!!! And it's not cheap at 20$/hour!!! Incredible!
The other hing that struck me the most was that while in the mine they do not eat anything but coca leaves! They said that normal food ferments quickly inside the mine and would damage their stomach! So they eat a lot when they do get out, of course, but they don't even have breakfast before getting in the mine...only coca leaves and sodas!!!
We kept walking some more through mud and water to get to another small cave with a 40-50m deep hole in the middle of it. The young miners that joined us comfortably sat around the whole, their legs dangling in the void, while we carefully and slowly found a place to sit down to chat with them. We gave them some coca leaves, dynamite and sodas and chatted with them. The most desired thing seemed to be foreign cigarettes, although our bags of coca leaves had some "homemade" ones...the two guys kept shouting down the hole to some people working at the bottom of it, and then after a bit they pulled up a boy who came to join us...JD, 13 years old,...he is working in the mine during his summer vacation from school, to join his father and brothers who all work there...I asked him if he preferred that or school, he said the latter, but he also said he is not very good at it! Nevertheless, he said his dream is to become an agricultural engineer!!! When I asked him what he was going to do with the money he would earn from working there, he said he would buy school supplies! Wow! There must be an easy way for people to donate something so simple and basic to us as school supplies!
After some more pictures we started heading back, stopping for the occasional cart coming by, before our last stop, which was the famous "Tio"! It's the mine's God, but since in Quechua the letter D is missing, instead of Dios he's called Tio, uncle! It looks like the devil, and it was supposedly put there at first by the Spanish, who thought that it would scare the miners and think he was supervising their work, since no Spanish ever set foot in the mine. Once the miners realized no one was making sure they were doing their job, and that the devil was not scary at all, they started adoring him! It's a statue of a guy sitting down, and he is covered in cigarettes, the obvious coca leaves, and some trash of course! The ritual includes lighting up a cigarette, putting it in his mouth, and then pour clear 96% alcohol all over his body, and then putting coca leaves on his muscles! The most impressive thing about the statue is his gigantic, disproportionate penis!!! We were explained that it symbolises fertility, of course, and after the guide poured some more alcohol on it (ouch, anyone?!) and drank some himself, he also said that the Tio is supposedly linked to the Pachamama, Mother Earth, who gave him such a gift so that any woman would be too scared to enter the mine, and the Pachamama wouldn't have any infidelity issues!!!
When we finally made it out of the mine the sunlight was blinding, of course, but at least I could stand straight! haha
The last attraction of the day was seeing dynamite explode! The guide set it on fire, and we had about 2 minutes to take silly pictures with it...then he took it somewhere far, and we witnessed the huge blast produced by just one piece of dynamite!!! It was awesome...not too loud to bother your ears, but powerful enough to shake everything, scare all the girls, and even shake our cameras as we were filming it!

Later on in the day, once I was done with the mine tour, I went to check out the city center and pay a visit to the Mint, one of the oldest and probably the richest in South America. Of course having rich mines made the Mint rich and famous back in the day, and many vessels full of coins used to set off for Europe. The ironic thing in all of this is that nowadays the techniques that were once used in Potosí are so outdated that Bolivia has to have its coins made in other countries, especially Chile! We visited several types of old coins, the machinery and tools used to produce them, and a lot of other tools and objects and ornaments used by the rich to show off their wealth. We also visited the furnaces, and the thing that struck me the most is that the best fuel for the furnaces was...llama feces!!! I forgot exactly why, but I'm sure it's also because it's easy to come by!

All in all I had a very good time in Potosí, a very pleasant and relaxed town! The final gem was its new bus terminal, out in the middle of nowhere but oh-so-modern!!! It even has a wi-fi area!!! That was of course one of the only few times I found a bus that was leaving within 10 minutes, when actually I would not have minded waiting while being able to surf the Web!

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Puno, Uros Islands, Amantanì, Taquile (Peru), Copacabana, Isla del Sol, La Paz, Uyuni (Bolivia)

Leaving Cusco after such an experience and with my whole daypack and all its contents wet was not an easy task...but I managed to get on a bus to Puno through amazingly beautiful landscape and little villages scattered around...R and I made it to Puno after nightfall, found a place to stay and proceeded to feed our empty stomachs. Puno seemed like a convenient jumping point to explore the Titicaca Lake, compact enough that you can walk everywhere, but not aesthetically appealing, especially if compared with Cusco! The next day I met again with K and the three of us got on a boat on the Titicaca to visit several islands. 
The first stop was to pay a visit to the Uros Islands, or floating islands, since their inhabitants, who used to live on boats (each boat hosted a family), built entire islands out of totora reeds. The roots are about 1 meter deep, on top of which they lay totora reeds for another meter, making the "ground" we walked on about 2 meter deep, while the lake is about 20 meter deep. All of this was explained to us during our visit to the second island, where a guy showed us how each o the smaller pieces which form an island are tied together and then anchored to the bottom of the lake wherever the islanders decide to stay. Walking on such ground was vey unusual as it feels squishy and you almost think you're going to sink, but of course it's all well done! Their articrafts as well as their houses and boats are quite the sight...we also visited a family's house that sleeps 2 parents and 3 children...I'm not too sure where, because the sleeping space was very limited! What I noticed immediately was a huge swat of flies everywhere, the smell pervading the small place (similar to the ways barns smell, but with a different twist to it that I cannot explain! This is also what most "indigenous people" smelled like on buses by the way!) and a radio and a very primitive tool similar to a TV! The woman said that Fujimori (Peru's former president) had donated solar panels to them! There was one right outside their house...but what I noticed first was a huge pile of plastic bottles...she said they used them to build their boats...they also made us wear their traditional costumes and of course pretty much forced us to buy some of their articrafts! 
Then we proceeded to get back on the boat and spent 3 beautiful hours slowly moving on the lake, enjoying the beautiful day, the incredible sights and the breeze on the deck! (We should have known better: the sun at 3830 meters above sea level is always brutal!) We eventually reached our destination for the day and night: the island of Amantanì. We followed a local woman to her house, found our room and then waited for our lunch...I was quite surprised at how easy it was to explain to her that I didn't eat fish and that I was more than happy to settle for a fried egg! After lunch and a siesta we walked to the main square where we ran into 2-3 big tour groups and then continued uphill for the top of the islands, where there are temples to the Pachamama and the Pachatata, Mother and Father Earth, at over 4150 meters!!! On our way down we found a soccer field and, although it was almost dark, we challenged the locals to a quick game! We didn't yet know what we had signed up for, but I guess that's what you get when you have an Italian, an Argentinean, a Japanese, an Ecuadorian and a Peruvian guy!!! Of course the altitude killed us before our opponents did, and it looked like they were 5 times faster than us...it felt like your fastest moves were still in slow motion! We ended up losing 2-0 and had to swallow our pride, although it was a balanced game overall.
After another great meal cooked by our host mother, we got dressed up in traditional clothes (a thick poncho and a typical winter hat) and headed down to the center for a traditional dance in a store turned into a ballroom.
The next day we left for Taquile, our last island before making it back to Puno. The stairs up to the center were pretty steep, but the views and the main square were worth it! On our boat ride back we all opted to sit or lay inside and not expose ourselves to any more sun rays! Once back in Puno, it was time to relax, we ate at a chifa (their version of a Chinese restaurant) and then went to bed early.
The next morning we crossed the border into Bolivia to reach Copacabana, a nice little touristy town on the Bolivian side of the Titicaca Lake. The rest of the day was spent visiting the famous sanctuary of the "Virgen de Copacabana" which is very popular because she supposedly protects travelers and their vehicles; we also checked out the rest of town and hiked up the Cerro Calvario, a nice little mountain with 14 stages of the cross and a beautiful view of the town and its bay! The most interesting part was watching the locals in their rituals at the top of the mountain. Everyone had some space on the ground that was arranged to look like their ideal house: some plants, a plastic house, a plastic car, some people even had a toy computer! Of course sizes and colors varied, and everything was bought at some stalls along the way...the rite consisted in opening many bottles of beer, spray one's house and desired possessions, then drink some...then light up some firecrackers in the middle of it all...then pour some clear liquid (holy water? pure alcohol?) over everything...then chew on as many coca leaves as possible...then more beer, more coca leaves, some cigarettes, and so on and so forth! 
We also witnessed a lady empty out the trash cans in a peculiar way...she lay out her "towel" to collect some of the trash and dispose of it, but before doing that she inspected every single bottle before dumping it down over 100 meters into the bay! That included a 2 liter soda bottle, and various glass beer bottles...it was quite shocking!
Besides all of the interesting things going on arounds, K and I were able to enjoy the sunset from up there...the next day we took a boat to Isla del Sol, another island on the Titicaca on the Bolivian side. After finding a place to stay we proceeded to take a tour of the island with M and A that we had randomly met again in our boat...the island was quite hilly, there seemed to be more donkeys than people, which is good if you want to escape tourists, but it's not so nice when you try to walk around and all paths are covered in donkey poop!
The locals seemed as unfriendly as they were back in Copacabana, and they were quick to charge tourists money, yet they were useless at giving directions, there was not even a single sign, and the money paid "to enter their communities" only seemed to go straight to them and give them money so that they didn't have to work rather than it being used to provide better services...all of this I'd later find out to be typical of Bolivia, where you're always charged money for small things that should be included, and despite paying, there are no services and the money does not seem to support or develop anything that the locals and/or tourists could benefit from. 
Yet, the atmosphere on the island was pretty special, and it was a nice way to escape the tourist crowds of Copacabana...so much that K decided to spend New Year's Eve there. I instead got on a bus to La Paz...quite an interesting ride as we had to pass an 800m long strait: everyone had to get off the bus and get onto a passenger boat, while the bus itself boarded some sort of cargo raft to make it across...once in La Paz I quickly realized that everyone had played it safe because of NYE and had reservations, while I was just hoping to show up and find a place...at The Point I was able to help out with advertising the hostel's NYE party and could use their facilities and crash on their couch for free for that night, since they were fully booked! That way I got the chance to see many parts of the city that I had not yet visited to give out fliers for the party! Little did they know I would actually end up not attending the party...haha
My own NYE party consisted of a 2 liter bottle of lemonade and a lookout high above the city from where I was able to see all the fireworks that were going on in different parts of the city and that lasted almost  an hour! It reminded me of what a city under siege looked like on TV, and it looked even more impressive because of the city's special setting between two hills.
The next day I got to meet up with L and his parents who gave me a tour of some parts of town that were too far from where I was staying, yet beautiful and very interesting, while very different from the idea I had in my head of what La Paz was like...I also got to visit El Valle de la Luna, an area south of the city that was full of impressive rock formations, which reminded me of Zabriskie Point in the Death Valley: very impressive! I also got a personal city tour by car thanks to L, and we checked out some lookouts around town.
The next day it was time for some adventure sports: mountain biking down what the locals call El Camino de la Muerte, for short The Death Road! It's an old road between La Cumbre at 4700m and Coroico at 1100m that used to have the highest number of fatalities as far as cars and trucks are concerned, mainly because it's 3.2m wide and it's between the mountain and cliffs as high as 700-800m!!! Now things have improved for traffic since a new road has been built, and the old road is taken over by a bunch of MTB companies who offer the same excursion I went on. It had not hit us till we got out of the van and it was freezing cold and extremely foggy/cloudy at 4700m where we started! It was overwhelming, but at the same time the clouds covered the precipice amd helped us not think about what was next to the road! The first part was pure asphalt, so that we could get used to handling our full suspension MTB's with hydraulic brakes...after 30 or so minutes the old, scary, unpaved road started, and that's where you needed to make sure you knew when you were going too fast or where the turns were sharp, because there was no second chance there, no guard rails, nothing...getting off the road on the left side meant falling off for 400, 500 or more meters down, which means dying...falling on the side of the mountain was not as dangerous, but still not too safe...one guy in our group went down against the mountain and his right elbow didn't look that good for the rest of the day! Luckily we had 2 good guides, and the front one tried to go as fast as the fastest among us, while in the back we had one more guide on a bike, a driver for the van and a mechanic...useful especially when my rear derailleur split open halfway through the Death Road! haha So I got a new bike which was a bit too small and to which I wasn't used to, so from that point on I slowed down a bit...the front of our group had some very good guys, and even one girl, who were awesome at cornering and choosing the right path, which I assume that's generally what  downhill MTB is about! We had several breaks to regroup, take pictures, get explanations from the guide, and we even had a snack! Sometimes we rode through waterfalls, as if the road alone was not dangerous enough, and we were filmed several times, so I'm really curious to see what the pictures and videos look like! The ride was overall about 64km, it took us about 5-6 hours I think: we started at 4700m where it was freezing and wet, we ended it in the jungle at 1100m where it was humid, hot and ridden with bugs of course! The terrain also was very varied, so it was a lot of fun!!!
The prize for surviving it was a warm shower, a swimming pool and a large lunch buffet!!! 
That same evening, despite a landslide and some other surprises along the road back to La Paz, I was able to get back in time to run to get my bag, run to the bus terminal and catch a bus to Uyuni...I got the last ticket as people were already boarding the bus, yet it was the best seat in the house: the very front seat above the driver, where you can stretch your legs and you have great views in front of you! You can also stick your camera out of the window and take awesome pictures, which I did, around dawn since we were in the middle of nowhere! Despite me having the best seat, the road for the whole 12 hour ride was as bumpy as one can imagine, and our big bus was shaking all night long! Combine that with the fact that I had not had the chance to grab some food for dinner, because I was rushing to get on the bus, so the only time we stopped for a break, around 2am, I was hungry and got a sandwich from a food stall that included a fried egg (I had tried to explain to her that I wanted only fries and salad, but it was too strange for her to understand it, and I was tired and hungry!)...well, I assume that the egg was not cooked for long enough (it seemed to me like it was less than a minute), so it definitely did not settle well in my stomach, and the bus' WC was pretty gross to begin with, but I couldn't resist any longer so before getting off in the morning I dropped some souvenirs in there! haha
My luck continued, or turned around should I say, considering my stomach situation, when I was able to get on a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni and other attractions along the route within the first 30 minutes I was in town; what's even better is that the tour would leave an hour later, it was the company that several travelers had recommended, and K was part of our group of 6 people!!! haha What a coincidence!
The tour was 3 days and 2 nights and included so many things that it's impossible to remember them all! We had a driver/guide and his wife who was the co-pilot and cook. Our group had an American, two Swiss-Germans, two Japanese and I. We soon realized everyone else in town was on a tour too, as at each stop one could see at least 20-25 LandCruisers! Our first stop was a train cemetery, where the attraction was old, rusty trains that used to carry silver and other minerals from the Bolivian mines to the ports in Chile from where they were shipped out. Our second stop was a town that had all sorts of souvenirs made of salt, of course! Next was the main sight: the mighty salt flats! We stopped several times to take pictures, to get out of the car and walk through puddles of salt. This time of the year the salt flats are not dry because it's rainy season, so they look like big lakes in some parts, with pretty reflections of the sky, the clouds and the sun. At first it looks like one is surrounded by snow, and the white surface is definitely blinding! Later, we stopped at a hotel that is entirely made of salt, and then an island in the middle of the salt flat that is full of cacti; some of them were 5-6 meter high! The view from the top was spectacular: all I could see were mountains and then white all around. After lunch we got back in the car and drove for segeral hours after leaving the salt flats to visit other attractions: volcanoes, lagoons, deserts, and strange rock formations! We called it a day when we reached the town of San Juan...well, if one really wants to call it a town! We had basic rooms, a basic shared bathroom, no electricity except for two hours at night, and we had to pay 5Bs. for the shower! Our food was cooked on gas stoves, we had tea and biscuits as soon as we got there and then dinner two hours later. Inbetween the two snacks we walked a few minutes "out of town" to check out the sunset, which was amazing, in a place thst our guide had said was full of caves. Only afterthe sun had set, as we were walking back and it was getting dark, did we notice that each cave had bones and skulls inside!
The next day we did more driving to see various colored lagoons and tons of different flamingos, in addition to vicuñas, alpacas and llamas, which are all very similar!
After lunch we drove through colored deserts, more volcanoes and more lagoons, almost all very impressive. We also had to argue with some officials working at what they called a national reserve, since as of a few days ago the fee to simply drive trough went up from 30 to 150Bs (about $22)!!! Paying so much for driving through super bumpy roads, when bathrooms and showers, when present, were extra and power was kn for just a few hours a day seemed to a lot of us like legalized robbery, and I made sure to give the official a piece of my mind...but in the end, as most people were paying, we had no choice but doig the same...waiting longer would have meant risking getting to the next place and not finding a place to stay and/or a place to eat! That's how efficient and organized the "national reserve" is! The following and last day of the tour the alarm was at 4 in order to reach the geysers when they were still going strong...so we did get there before sunrise, and it was freezing, but still quite impressive! The first one we saw must have been at least 10-12m high! The next one was as strong and as loud as a fire idrant, and it was surrounded by several sulphuric pools. Next was some hot springs where we soaked for about 30 minutes in a spectacular setting of mountains, flamingos, lagoons and mountains. After breakfast we kept driving for a desert and a green lagoon at the foot of a volcano that reached almost 5000m. We proceeded to drop off 4 of our friends at the border with Chile and then two of us with the guide and the cook continued through scenic valleys and super bumpy roads to stop in the little town of Villamar for a huge lunch, since there was only two of us left; nevertheless, to continue our tradition of finishing everything we werr given, we swallowed everything and even looked to our neighbors'tables which were still full of food! 
Our last two stops on our way back to Uyuni were some more interesting rocks (among which a pregnant lady, a condor and an Inca face) and the little town of San Cristobal, where everything was shut so all the tourists just ended up sitting around the main square while their drivers took a break from the bumpy driving!
We got back to Uyuni 30 minutes earlier than expected, which rarely happens and which I thought was going to be perfect because it gave me an hour till the buses for Potosì and Sucre would leave...I just forgot to factor in the huge crowds trying to leave this town, and most importantly the huge number of Argentinian mochileros everywhere, traveling in groups of 5-6, sometimes even 10 or more; to make matters worse, the buses leaving from here are half the size of normal buses, which ruined all my plans and forced me to spend an extra 24 hours in this town without wi-fi, cold drinks or ice cream of any sort...just a lot of Argentinians!!! This morning, after getting a chance to rest, shower and charge my gadgets, I managed to find a noon bus for Potosì...except that the bus ended up not showing up because of mechanical problems, and I'm spending an additional 6 hours in this lovely town! Since I'll be getting there in the middle of the night, if we make it that is (here the saying is "todo es posible, nada es seguro"), I tried to call up a few places on my book that seemed to be the best...everything is full! That's when I realized that I'll have to deal with the huge crowds of Argentinians for the remainder of my trip, as most of them are heading north to Peru just like me! Lovely!
Nothing else to say aboyt Uyuni except that I can't wait to go somewhere else, see something else and not have to deal with huge crowds of people taking over buses and hostels, playing guitar, drinking mate and being loud! haha
Actually, the silver mines of Potosì and the architecture of Sucre should be wonderful, so in order to enjoy all of that I had to book accommodations there in advance, and I'n now going to look for a mine tour for tomorrow morning! As soon as I find a wi-fi hotspot I'll post all of this!